Bittersweet

by Susan Wittig Albert

  “It’s wonderful to have you here,” Leatha murmured, with a smile for Sue Ellen that she shared—almost as an afterthought, it seemed—with me. I felt a stab of something that I hoped wasn’t jealousy. I liked Sue Ellen, and I reminded myself to be grateful for the time she was willing to devote to my mother, who needed someone she could depend on right now. She needed Sue Ellen, actually. And it sounded like Sue Ellen needed her.

  I learned more about that after we finished the dishes. Leatha pulled me aside and reminded me that she hoped I would be able to answer Sue Ellen’s questions. “And I hope you’ll be nice,” she added in a low voice.

  “I’m always nice,” I said, surprised.

  She sighed and shook her head. “Sometimes you’re . . . well, you’re a lawyer.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Well, if she needs to ask a lawyer a question, she needs to get a lawyer’s answer, doesn’t she?”

  “Just be nice,” Leatha said, and turned away. “Come on, Caitie. What kind of pie shall we make first? Peach or mincemeat?”

  Sue Ellen and I turned on the outdoor light—it was pitch-dark already—and went out to unpack her Ford. It turned out to be loaded with an amazing amount of stuff. Clothes, shoes, books, record albums, a laptop, even a bag of groceries and a gray tabby cat who was not amused—a lot more than you’d think such a little car could hold. I found a wheelbarrow, and we piled it high with boxes and bags and trundled them to the lodge, Sue Ellen cradling her cat, Amarillo, in her arms. It took several trips to empty the car, but at last it was done.

  Leatha had given Sue Ellen a key so she could lock the doors when she left, but she dropped it into the drawer of the nightstand beside the bed. “I don’t know that I’d even bother locking up here,” she said happily, looking around the small suite. “It feels really safe.” She made a face. “I don’t mean to be harping on that theme, China. It’s just that it’s kind of important to me right now, after the past week or two.”

  “Sounds like you’ve had a tough time.” Mildly curious, I stacked my load of cartons on the floor next to the bed. “What’s been going on?”

  Sue Ellen went into the bathroom with a box of cosmetics. “Oh, just . . . stuff,” she said vaguely.

  I moved a pile of clothes to the other end of the sofa and sat down. “Leatha says you have some questions you want to ask me.”

  Sue Ellen came out of the bathroom. “Why do you call your mother Leatha?” she asked curiously. “And I noticed that you call your husband by his last name. Seems a little . . . well, unusual. But that’s not one of the questions I wanted to ask,” she added hastily. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

  “My mother and I weren’t very close, when I was growing up,” I said. “Back then, she wanted me to call her by her first name. I think it made her feel . . . younger, maybe.” I didn’t want to tell Sue Ellen that the woman she knew now was different from the woman I had known when I was a girl. I propped my feet on the coffee table in front of the sofa and leaned back, clasping my hands behind my head.

  “As for McQuaid, when I met him, he was a cop and I was a criminal defense lawyer. Everybody in that business uses last names, so we were Bayles and McQuaid. He’s gotten out of the habit, but I like the name McQuaid. It seems to fit him.” I brought the subject back to her. “That’s my answer. So what are your other questions?”

  “Hang on a sec.” She stepped into the kitchenette, pulled a couple of soft drink cans out of a six-pack, and stuck the rest into the small fridge. Handing me one of the cans, she plopped into the chair beside the sofa, and we popped our tops in unison.

  “Your mom told me you handled criminal cases,” she said, as if she were answering me. Amarillo, who had been exploring the premises, saw his chance and jumped onto her lap to get his paws warm.

  “That’s right. I’m afraid I don’t know much about divorce law.” I was being nice. “For that, you need to find somebody who specializes in—”

  “I know.” She stroked Amarillo, who powered up his purr. “I found a lawyer in Uvalde and filed last week. He told me that since Jack was being such a butthead, I should go ahead and move out.” She turned her head and touched the bruise on her jaw.

  “Ah,” I said sympathetically, and my heart hardened toward her husband. There’s no excuse for violence. Period. “That’s too bad, Sue Ellen.”

  “Not as bad as this.” She rolled up her sleeve and held out her arm so I could see the large purple bruises, then rolled down her sleeve again.

  “Did your lawyer suggest a protective order? If you’re afraid—”

  “He did, but now that I’ve moved out, I don’t think Jack will bother me.”

  “Maybe,” I said slowly. “Still, if he’s been violent, a protective order is a good idea, Sue Ellen. The penalty is hefty—up to a year in jail. That by itself could keep him away.”

  “But it’s not just him,” she said. “It’s his buddies. Duke and Lucky. It’s the three of them. I mean, I don’t give a damn what happens to those other two guys. They can go straight to hell as far as I’m concerned.” She scooted the cat off her lap and began pulling her boots off. “It’s Jack I worry about. Duke and Lucky are using him, and he’s into something dangerous.” She grunted and yanked. “I have always been a totally loyal person, but there’s a limit.”

  “Dangerous? Dangerous how?”

  “Oh, just . . . you know.” She thought about it for a moment, decided not to tell me, and went on. “Of course, now that I’ve filed, Jack can do whatever he wants. It’s not my business anymore.” She dropped the boot.

  Maybe yes, maybe no, I thought. “When will your divorce be final?”

  “Sixty days after the first hearing.” She pulled off the other boot, and both stockings. “That’s because there’s nothing to fight over,” she added, as Amarillo reclaimed her lap. “No kids, no real estate. All I have is my cat, my little red Ford, and my clothes and records and stuff. And what he has, I don’t want anything to do with.”

  “Why?” I asked curiously. “I mean, why don’t you want anything—”

  “Because Jack is in way over his head in this really bad deal that Duke and Lucky have cooked up.” She wiggled her prettily polished bare toes, flexing them. “It’s one of the reasons I decided to leave him. Of course there are others—like his drinking and that rodeo queen up in Bandera last summer. But the thing with Duke and Lucky is the main reason. The big one.” Her voice had a hard edge to it. “I told him he’s going to lose his job if anybody finds out. I looked it up on the Internet and found out that he could be in for a whopping big fine and jail time. That’s when I told him he’d have to quit or I was leaving. He blew up and started slapping me around.”

  “Quit what?” I asked. It seemed like a natural question. And I was still being nice.

  She picked up her can and sipped. “What he’s doing.”

  “Which is?” When she hesitated, I helped her out. “For example, is he killing people? Stealing cars? Cooking meth? Smuggling undocumented workers across the border? What?”

  She giggled nervously.

  “I’m serious. What’s he doing, Sue Ellen?” I wasn’t asking out of curiosity. If she knew that he was involved in a criminal activity and didn’t report it to the authorities, she risked being charged as an accessory. I liked her, yes, and I wanted to keep her out of trouble, if I could. But I confess to having a selfish motive as well, for if she got into serious trouble, she wouldn’t be much help to Leatha and Sam.

  She thought for a moment, chewing one corner of her lip. “Well, I guess maybe the easiest way to describe it is to say that he’s stealing. From . . . from the guys he works for.” She wasn’t meeting my eyes.

  I prompted her. “Stealing what? Stealing money?”

  Another pause, more lip chewing. “Well . . . yeah. Money is what it boils down to, I guess. Maybe you could tell me how much t
ime he’d have to spend in jail if he got caught.”

  Her hesitation led me to think that it could boil down to something else. Still being nice, I gave her the boilerplate answer.

  “Okay, then, if it’s actual money, the scale is pretty simple. It depends on how much. If he’s convicted of taking less than $500, it’s misdemeanor theft, which gets him up to a year and a possible $4,000 fine. More than that, we’re talking grand theft, and there’s a scale. Up to $100,000, it’s third degree grand theft, and he can get up to ten years. Up to $200,000, it’s second and twenty. Anything over that, first and ninety-nine. On top of the prison time, there’s a potential $10,000 fine.” I paused. “And don’t forget tax evasion. The feds resent it when people steal and don’t pay taxes on their ill-gotten gains. And sometimes divorce doesn’t untie the knot, where the feds are concerned.” I added the last sentence on purpose, but being nice, I tacked on, “Does that answer your question?”

  “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Ninety-nine years?” She had turned pale, and the freckles stood out on her nose. “Ninety-nine years?”

  “He stole over two hundred thousand?” I was moderately surprised. “His employer leaves that much money lying around? Or your husband has access to—”

  “Only for the next sixty days,” she put in firmly. “After that, he’s not. My husband, I mean.” She placed both hands on her heart. “And in my heart of hearts, I’m already divorced.”

  He must be playing the ponies, I thought. Or the stock market. When somebody got into first degree grand theft, it was usually a nickel-and-dime embezzlement that snowballed. I gave her a hard look. “You didn’t get a share of his loot? As in dollars or diamonds or Caribbean cruises?”

  “Are you kidding?” she asked. “Diamonds? Cruises? That’s a laugh.”

  “No, I’m serious. Did you?”

  Now she was indignant. “I did not, swear to God, China. Not a nickel. I have no part in anything that creep and his buddies have done. And as soon as we’re divorced, I’ll be free of all of it.”

  I shook my head. “But maybe not, Sue Ellen. The feds don’t take divorce for an answer to the question of tax evasion. What they look at is your name on the joint return. If he declared his theft, you’re okay. If not, you’re not.”

  “I’m not believing this,” she said faintly.

  “I know. It’s really, really cruel, but that’s the IRS for you. If he’s been stealing and hasn’t declared his ill-gotten gains on your joint return, they can come after you, divorced or not. There’s a provision called Innocent Spouse Relief, but it’s not easy to qualify.”

  “Damn.” Her eyes were big. And scared. “I had no idea . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  I was swept by a wave of sympathy. She was a sweet kid who could find herself in big trouble if she didn’t watch out. “I get that, Sue Ellen. That’s why the more information you give me, the more help I can give you.”

  She picked up the soft drink can and turned it in her fingers. “Well, maybe I’d better ask you what the cops would do to somebody who knew—” She stopped, not looking at me, and swallowed hard.

  “You’re asking what would happen to Sue Ellen if the authorities found out that she knew what her husband and his pals were up to and didn’t tell them.” It wasn’t a question.

  Her pretty mouth dropped open. “Well, yes,” she managed. “But how did you know what I—”

  “Because you’re not the first person who’s asked me that.” I sat forward and propped my folded arms on my knees. “The answer is, ‘It depends.’”

  “On . . . on what?” Her voice had gotten squeaky.

  “On how much you know and how willing you are to cooperate. If you know a lot and what you know is important and if you offer it and yourself up voluntarily, your clever and wily defense attorney will use it like a crowbar to pry you out of the hole you’ve already dug for yourself by obstructing justice and being an accessory before and after the fact.”

  Her eyes widened and she pulled in her breath. “But I haven’t obstructed . . . what you said.”

  “Yes, you have. Anybody who knows of a crime and fails to report it is an accessory—before, after, or both. And by definition, an accessory obstructs justice.” I hardened my tone. “If, on the other hand, you know only a little, or the district attorney already knows what you know, or you wait until they track you down and haul you off to jail, you won’t have any leverage at all, and your clever and wily defense attorney will be reduced to getting down on his or her knees and begging for crumbs—crawling, even.”

  She swallowed and tried to say something, but nothing came out.

  “So the moral of this story,” I added crisply, “is that the sooner you rat these guys out, the more kindly you’ll be treated in the DA’s office. I would suggest taking a lawyer with you when you go. And if I were you, I’d go soon. Maybe not on Thanksgiving. But the day after that.”

  I wasn’t being very nice now. Sometimes it takes a little shock to shake people into an awareness of their vulnerability. Sometimes it takes an earthquake. Sue Ellen needed to understand the consequences of withholding whatever she was withholding. DAs like to use a little extra muscle on the spouse (metaphorically speaking), since it is assumed that she is privy to all the marital secrets, including where her husband put the money he’d been shoving into his pockets.

  She finally got the words out. “Could you . . . would you be my lawyer, if I needed one?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t. But I can give you a name or two.” At the top of the list would be Justine Wyzinski, a.k.a the Whiz, an old friend from law school at the University of Texas. She is tough, mean, and abrasive, but she has a heart, especially for women in trouble. She sometimes does pro bono work, especially if it doesn’t involve going to trial. I thought this situation could be handled with a visit or two to the Uvalde County DA’s office—if Sue Ellen would cooperate.

  Sue Ellen chewed on that for a moment, then came to a conclusion. “Okay, if that’s what you think I have to do. Let me get a pencil out of my purse and you can write down her name and number.”

  I couldn’t help feeling relieved. I liked Sue Ellen, and it sounded as if her husband had backed her into a corner. The divorce was the way out of the marriage, but if he was involved in something criminal, it might not take her off the hook. And she couldn’t just sit around and wait to see what happened, either.

  “Here,” she said, coming back into the room with a pencil and a scrap of paper.

  I took out my cell phone, pulled up Justine’s number. I wrote it down, with her name, as well as my own. “You’re going to have to tell Ms. Wyzinski everything,” I said, giving her the paper. “She can’t help if you’re holding back—if you’re holding anything back.” I paused to let that sink in. “Want me to let her know you’ll be calling?”

  She wrinkled her nose, thinking about that. “I guess,” she said finally. “Yeah, sure.” But she didn’t sound positive.

  “Tell you what,” I said. “Give me your cell number. I’ll talk to Ms. Wyzinski. Then I’ll call you and let you know if she’s able to take you on. She’s good, so she’s pretty busy. We might need to look for somebody else.” I slid her a glance. “As long as you’re really serious about this. Are you?”

  She sounded chastened. “I kind of feel like I don’t have any choice. If I do it and Jack goes to jail, I’ll feel like crap. If I don’t, I’m in trouble.” She bit her lip. “I guess I gotta just bite the damn bullet and do it.”

  “Atta girl,” I said approvingly. She gave me her cell number and I keyed it into my phone, then drained my soft drink and stood up. “I hope I haven’t made life harder for you, but I always think it’s better to know where you’re going than grope around in the dark. Could be some really bad stuff out there that you don’t know about. It could bite you.” Of course, it could bite her even if she knew it was there, but that
was another story.

  “I guess I was hoping I didn’t have to be involved. It’s all so ugly.”

  “We all wish that every so often.” I smiled crookedly.

  She nodded, resigned. “Anyway, thanks for your help, China. I really appreciate it.”

  “Tit for tat,” I said. “I need to thank you for being helpful to my mother. I can see how much she depends on you. And with Sam in the hospital—” I broke off. “I know I should do more to help them, but I’m pretty far away. I’m relieved that you’re willing to give them a hand for a few weeks.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up about it,” she said in a practical tone. “Leatha understands that you have your own life. She doesn’t expect you to spend time here, except when you can. Like on holidays.” She frowned. “I’m sure she’s aware that she and Sam have bitten off more than they can chew right now.”

  “You think?” I sighed. “She’s always so damned cheerful, it’s hard to guess just what she knows.”

  “I think,” Sue Ellen replied firmly. “But anyway, that’s not your problem. I can help out for a few weeks, and after that, I know of somebody else who can pitch in.”

  “Oh, really?” I asked eagerly. “Somebody who can move in here and help?”

  “I don’t know about moving in,” she said, “but she can help. She’s my baby sister, Patsy Wilbur. She lives with our mom and dad in Utopia and works at Jennie’s Kitchen. She’s full-time there right now, because Jennie’s cook is out having a baby. But she’ll go back to part-time at the first of the year, and she says she’d be glad to come and help your mom maybe three days a week.”